After Starkiller
by deathstarre
Summary: A short piece. Kylo Ren arrives on board the Finalizer's Medical Bay after being saved by Hux off Starkiller. He is extremely distraught, bordering on distressed post-surgery. (Three mini-chapters in the first chapter.)


I.

A team of medical staff hurried through the corridors of the Finalizer's medical Bay. Kylo Ren had just been transferred on board from his command shuttle - incidentally, the last ship fortunate enough to lift off Starkiller before the base imploded. Captain Phasma (onboard the Finalizer) had just gotten hold of the damage report. Two battalions of stormtroopers, thirteen pilots, seven in intelligence were reported lost. She flipped the page - and another, and yet another - to discover an extensive list of missing or lost technical and auxillary support staff members. She shook her head at the multitudes of codenames, and snapped close the report between the covers of the file.

She looked out from her post, onto the docking bay, to see Ren being efficiently wheeled out by four medics. General Hux followed about two metres behind them.

The operating theatre was furnished with enough equipment to last at least an eight-hour procedure. The surgeons were of the highest class of conditioning - as such, they harboured no fear, despite Ren's physical predicament consigning him, in all objectivity, to an extremely slim chance of survival. The bowcaster shot had punctured his left kidney, stomach and intestines - if not for Ren's concentrated reliance on the Force, he'd have perished in the height of the climactic battle. His shoulder blade needed no menial amount of bone grafting - a dubious procedure entirely. When questioned, however, the head surgeon, second-in-command, and three assistants vouched for only confidence, that their Commander would be well onto recovery as the sun, in a distant system regained its brilliance.

Ren was wheeled into the operating theatre. Hux entered, and stood in front of the closed door, and kept a distance from the lights and disarray of surgeons and equipment which buzzed around the injured Commander. Prior to the alighting from the shuttle, Ren had dished out a tremendous fit in agonised horror - the pain searing through his body made him feel as if his wounds were eating him from the inside. He roared, but having broken a railing and dislocated the levers of the first bed which he was in, he was now exhausted. The wave of discontented defeat loosely gripped his consciousness. He mumbled - short breathy monologues about hatred and loss, glazed by a very distinct sense of questioning, of a lack of understanding, of a possibility for second chances and revenge. His interjections were initially still spliced by terrible convulsions and seizures - accompanied by those terrifying shouts of his, before physical deficiency claimed dominion over his most savage monsters. He winced, and arched his body as six doses of general anaesthesia was applied to him. The head surgeon quizzed one of the assistants on the whereabouts of the extra dosages, to which the assistant rightly pointed out its position, on one of the trays. That assistant was to be responsible for its administration, or the lack of it.

The procedure begun - Ren closed into a deep slumber. One or two hours passed, and in his mind, begun the weavings of visions. Was that Snoke he heard speaking to him? It was not yet strong enough, so that his eyelid would twitch, but these Force manipulations were growing more potent by the minute.

II.

{Medical Suite, Finalizer  
Thirteen hours post surgery}

The Supreme Leader Snoke entered the room. A single heart rate monitor emanated regular beeps which wrestled in tandem with the still atmosphere of the medical suite.

Ren, still unconscious on a single bed within the insulating confines, began to stir after several hours. First, his right eye began to twitch, then, his left wrist - tagged with labels and attached to tubes - moved an inch across the mattress, his fingers fanning out across the sheet. A wave of foreboding washed over him the millisecond before his eyes began to open - a great feeling of cold and heaviness which weighed his senses down. In his almost-consciousness, he accepted the rational explanation that another dose of sedation had been applied. He attempted to will his mind to regain consciousness, yet the feeling of dread felt like an avalanche to which he was powerless of gaining any leverage over. Visually, smoke, of dark grey and gradually darkening to black, infiltrated his mind's eye. He furrowed his brow, underneath the scar of crimson which his brazen appearance now appropriated. He was to roar himself awake.

His eyes opened with a start. Within his field of vision the Supreme Leader was contained. He felt strangely calm, and slightly unsettled.

The Supreme Leader uttered those words.

''Knight of Ren..'' Snoke said quietly.  
''You have gone through your big test. Closer and closer, you come to the Darkness. The time has come for you to complete your training.''

"Yes, Supreme Leader." The voice that left Ren was initially muffled; the crisp lowness returning once he uttered "Supreme." He eyed, upwards, Snoke's towering height over his bedridden state. Ren's stoic gaze withheld a tenuous balance of complex emotions. He withdrew eye contact at intervals, owing to his lethargy, before he willed the muscles of his eye to re-acknowledging the Leader's presence. He knew that Snoke could sense him. There seemed to have too many unanswered questions.

iii.

In response, Ren grimaced. Wincing, his jaw tensed, restraining a humiliating vocal reaction. He'd not anticipated the degree of scarring, although the caress of Snoke's slender digit was chilling in the very least. His heavy head sank lethargically on the pillow. Neck cranked to one side, he listened to the words of the Supreme Leader. The voice sounded so hollow, but Snoke was himself so tangible. Conversing apart from the hologram would take some getting used to.

"It was her." Ren finally spoke, as Snoke neared the exit. It started off as a murmur, but he repeated himself, as the consciousness of his mind began to revive his senses. "It was her."

A modest gaze concealed harrowing concerns regarding the girl's extraordinary affinity with the Force. His thoughts were not clear-cut. The loss of pride gripped him; but the girl's identity, her origins and her whereabouts worried him far greater. Furthermore, a dangerous adversary remained uncaptured in a period of great tension with the Resistance. Completely unacceptable. His mental monologue disrupted, he remembered his General. General Hux. Where was he?

Despite the gnawing pain from his stitched-up gut, Ren pushed himself up. As if not distraught enough, the sudden remembrance of the lost map jolted his memory like a second bowcaster shot. He sat up with a yell of frustration, immediately burying his face in his hands. Snoke's presence did buy Ren some restraint. He inhaled sharply, then slumped back against the pillows which he had elbowed behind to cushion his back.

"She's training," Ren reiterated Snoke's words, as if to seek confirmation for them. He was now flooded with visions of Luke Skywalker and his own distant past. With a loud hiss, he pushed the bed's table to the edge, swivelled, and placed his feet one by one on the ground. Accidental twists of the gut's stitches did not hinder his will to stand. Clutching the edge of a pole for stability, he rose shakily, convinced that unsettling thoughts were to be left for private. Better, left behind.

"Supreme Leader." He shook his head, matted locks tousling by his sides. "We will start." His gaze now trained on Snoke's, he repeated with silent confidence,.

"Supreme Leader." Ren fell to the floor, still crippled by physical weakness. He'd not had solid food for two days.

"I need to finish my training."


End file.
